Elements of Greek mythology appear many times in culture, including pop culture. [3] [ need quotation to verify ] The Greek myths spread beyond the Hellenistic world when adopted into the culture of ancient Rome, and Western cultural movements have frequently incorporated them ever since, [4] particularly since the Renaissance. [5] Mythological elements feature in Renaissance art and in English poems, [6] as well as in film and in other literature, [7] and in songs and commercials. [8] Along with the Bible and the classics-saturated works of Shakespeare, the myths of Greece and Rome have been the major "touchstone" in Western culture for the past 500 years. [9] [ need quotation to verify ]
Elements appropriated or incorporated include the gods of varying stature, humans, demigods, titans, giants, monsters, nymphs, and famed locations. Their use can range from a brief allusion to the use of an actual Greek character as a character in a work. Many types of creatures—such as centaurs and nymphs—are used as a generic type rather than individuated characters out of myth.
Roman conquerors of the Hellenic East allowed the incorporation of existing Greek mythological figures such as Zeus into their coinage in places like Phrygia, in order to "augment the fame" of the locality, while "creating a stronger civil identity" without "advertising" the imposition of Roman culture. [10]
In the 21st century CE, the initial Greek 2-Euro coin featured the myth of Zeus and Europa, and sought to connect the new Europe to the ancient culture of Greece. [11] As of December 2012 [update] the European Central Bank had plans to incorporate Greek mythological figures into the designs used on its bank notes. [12]
In 1795 the American colonial revolutionary Thomas Greenleaf titled his New York newspaper The Argus [13] after the mythological watchman; Greenleaf adopted the slogan "We Guard the Rights of Man". [14] [ need quotation to verify ]
The figure of Pegasus appears frequently on stamps, particularly on those used for air mail. [15] In 1906, Greece issued a series of stamps featuring stories from the life of Hercules. [16] Australia commemorated the laying of an underwater cable linking the Australian mainland to the island of Tasmania with a stamp featuring an image of Amphitrite. [17]
The United States military has drawn on Greek mythology to name equipment such as the Nike missile project. [18] The United States Navy has commissioned over a dozen ships named from Greek mythology. The ships include: [19] [20]
Greek mythology has provided names for a number of ships in the British navy. Such ships include: [21] [22]
The Royal Australian Navy continued this tradition; [23] [24] it also has a training facility in Victoria called HMAS Cerebus. [25]
The Royal New Zealand Navy inherited Greek mythological names from the Royal Navy: it operated HMNZS Achilles and maintains the base HMNZS Philomel.
The Canadair CP-107 Argus of the Royal Canadian Air Force is named in honor both of the hundred-eyed Argus Panoptes (the "all seeing") and of Odysseus' dog Argus - the only one to identify Odysseus upon his return home. [26]
Governments and institutions worldwide make use of mythological abstractions such as Dike/Iustitia (Justice) in grand public buildings. Museums, libraries and art galleries may feature sculptures and images referencing classical Muses.
The elements tantalum and niobium are always found together in nature, and have been named after the King Tantalus and his daughter Niobe. [27] [28] The element promethium also draws its name from Greek mythology, [27] [28] as does titanium, which was named after the titans who in mythology were locked away far underground, which reflected the difficulty of extracting titanium from ore. [29]
Oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau named his research ship, a former British Royal Navy minesweeper, RV Calypso after the sea nymph Calypso. [30] The ship later inspired the John Denver song "Calypso". [31]
The Trojan Horse, a seemingly benign gift that allowed entrance by a malicious force, gave its name to the computer hacking methodology called Trojans. [32]
The medical profession is symbolized by the snake-entwined staff of the god of medicine, Asclepius. Today's medical professionals hold a similarly honored position as did the healer-priests of Asclepius. [33]
The Gaia hypothesis proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. The hypothesis was formulated by the scientist James Lovelock [34] and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis [35] and was named after Gaia, the mother of the Greek gods. [36]
Many celestial bodies have been named after elements of Greek mythology.
In psychoanalytic theory, the term "Oedipus complex", coined by Sigmund Freud, denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a child's desire to sexually possess his/her mother, and kill his/her father. [42] [43] In his later writings Freud postulated an equivalent Oedipus situation for infant girls, the sexual fixation being on the father. The term 'Electra complex' is sometimes used to describe this condition, although Freud himself did not do so. [44]
A "Medea complex" is sometimes used to describe parents who murder or otherwise harm their children. [45]
Particularly starting in the Renaissance, artists across Europe produced thousands of works of art depicting the Greek deities and their myths, for reasons ranging from the erudite to the political to the erotic. In particular, in certain periods it was permissible to depict pagan deities nude when it would have been scandalous to so depict a human model or character.
Romans would frequently keep statuary of the Greek god Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and pleasure, in their homes to use as a method of sanctioning relaxation without "any intellectual demands." [74]
Medusa's likeness has been featured by numerous artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Peter Paul Rubens, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin and Benvenuto Cellini. [75]
Some stories in the Arabian Nights, such as the story of Sinbad blinding a giant, are thought to have been inspired by Greek myths. [77]
In 1816, Percy Shelley had been working on a translation of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound for Lord Byron. [78] That summer, Shelley and his lover, Mary Godwin, as well as others, stayed with Lord Byron in Switzerland. As a contest, Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story. Mary, who would eventually adopt the name Mary Shelley, began writing her Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus , which was declared the winner of the contest. [79] [80] The fact that she overtly subtitled the novel emphasizes Shelley's inspiration from the story of Prometheus, drawing particular attention to the "metaphorical parallels." [81]
In Irish literature, writers such as Seamus Heaney have used the Greek myths to "intertextualize" the actions of the British Government. [82]
Andrew Lang rewrote the tale of Perseus as the anonymous "The Terrible Head" in The Blue Fairy Book . [83]
In C. S. Lewis's retelling of Cupid and Psyche, Till We Have Faces , the narrator is Psyche's sister. [84]
Roberta Gellis's Shimmering Splendor is a retelling of Cupid and Psyche. [85] [ unreliable source? ]
The Italian poet Dante Alighieri used characters from the legend of Troy in his Divine Comedy , placing the Greek heroes in hell to show his contempt for their actions. [9] Poets of the Renaissance began to widely write about Greek mythology, and "elicited as much praise for borrowing or reworking" such material as they did for truly original work. [9] The poet John Milton used figures from classical mythology to "further Christianity: to teach a Christian moral or illustrate a Christian virtue." [9] [86] Euphrosyne, Hymen and Hebe appear in his L'Allegro . [87] Works of Alexander Pope, such as "The Rape of the Lock", parody classical works, even as the income from his translations of Homer allowed him to become "the first English writer to earn a living solely through his literature." [9]
In Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats rejects "charioted by Bacchus and his pards." [88] In his poem "Endymion", the "song of the Indian Maid" recounts how "Bacchus and his crew" interrupted the maid in her solitude. [89] He titled an 1898 narrative poem Lamia . [90]
Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Oenone" is her lament that Paris deserted her for Helen. [91]
When poets of the German Romantic tradition, such as Friedrich Schiller, wrote about the Greek gods, their works were frequently "erotically charged", as they were "openly sensual and hedonistic". [92]
In "The Waste Land", T. S. Eliot incorporates a range of elements and inspirations from Greek mythology to pop music to Elizabethan history to create a "tour-de-force exposition of Western culture, from the elite to the folk to the utterly primitive." [93] The work of Indian poet Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was heavily influenced by Greek mythology. [94]
Nina Kosman published a book of poems inspired by Greek myths created by poets of the twentieth century from around the world which she intended to show not only the "durability" of the stories but how they are interpreted by "modern sensibility." [95]
During the Middle Ages, writers disdained the use of "pagan" influences such as Greek mythology which were seen to be a "slight to Christianity." [9] From a current cultural perspective, the Greek Orthodox metropolitan Agustinos Kantiotis has denounced the use of Greek mythology such as the use of Hermes on a postage stamp and the incorporation of images from Greek mythology into universities' logos and buildings. [129]
Within the cultures of Latin America, beginning in the 19th Century, the inspiration for culture has been dominated by elements from the Native American cultural myths, rather than those of the Greco-Roman inspiration. [5]
Greek women poets of the modern era; such as Maria Polydouri, Pavlina Pamboudi, Myrtiotissa, Melissanthi and Rita Boumi-Pappa; rarely use mythological references, which Christopher Robinson attributes to the "problem of gender roles, both inside and outside the myths." [130]
Martin Winter says that the idea that many commentaries about the widespread use of Greek myths throughout Western culture does not take into account the vast difference between what a modern viewer takes from the story and what it would have meant to an ancient Greek. [131]
In ancient Greek religion, Hera is the goddess of marriage, women, and family, and the protector of women during childbirth. In Greek mythology, she is queen of the twelve Olympians and Mount Olympus, sister and wife of Zeus, and daughter of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. One of her defining characteristics in myth is her jealous and vengeful nature in dealing with any who offended her, especially Zeus's numerous adulterous lovers and illegitimate offspring.
Hades, in the ancient Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed joint rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard-dog of the underworld, standing at his side.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is one of the Titans and a god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the Olympian gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, knowledge, and more generally, civilization.
In ancient Greek mythology and religion, Persephone, also called Kore or Cora, is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She became the queen of the underworld after her abduction by her uncle Hades, the king of the underworld, who would later also take her into marriage.
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. He was also known as Bacchus by the Greeks for a frenzy he is said to induce called baccheia. As Dionysus Eleutherius, his wine, music, and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care, and subvert the oppressive restraints of the powerful. His thyrsus, a fennel-stem sceptre, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a weapon used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. Those who partake of his mysteries are believed to become possessed and empowered by the god himself.
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus or Sisyphos was the founder and king of Ephyra. He was a devious tyrant who killed visitors to show off his power. This violation of the sacred hospitality tradition greatly angered the gods. They punished him for trickery of others, including his cheating death twice. The gods forced him to roll an immense boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for eternity. Through the classical influence on modern culture, tasks that are both laborious and futile are therefore described as Sisyphean.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Zagreus was a god sometimes identified with an Orphic Dionysus, a son of Zeus and Persephone, who was dismembered by the Titans and reborn. In the earliest mention of Zagreus, he is paired with Gaia and called the "highest" god, though perhaps only in reference to the gods of the underworld. Aeschylus, however, links Zagreus with Hades, possibly as Hades' son, or as Hades himself. Noting "Hades' identity as Zeus' katachthonios alter ego", Timothy Gantz postulated that Zagreus, originally the son of Hades and Persephone, later merged with the Orphic Dionysus, the son of Zeus and Persephone.
In Greek mythology, Kratos, also known as Cratus or Cratos, is the divine personification of strength. He is the son of Pallas and Styx. Kratos and his siblings Nike ('Victory'), Bia ('Force'), and Zelus ('Glory') are all the personification of a specific trait. Kratos is first mentioned alongside his siblings in Hesiod's Theogony. According to Hesiod, Kratos and his siblings dwell with Zeus because their mother Styx came to him first to request a position in his regime, so he honored her and her children with exalted positions. Kratos and his sister Bia are best known for their appearance in the opening scene of Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound. Acting as agents of Zeus, they lead the captive Titan Prometheus on stage. Kratos compels the mild-mannered blacksmith god Hephaestus to chain Prometheus to a rock as punishment for his theft of fire.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto was the ruler of the Greek underworld. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploûtos, the Greek god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest. The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as both a stern ruler and a loving husband to Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife and are invoked together in religious inscriptions, being referred to as Plouton and as Kore respectively. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.
Classical mythology, also known as Greco-Roman mythology or Greek and Roman mythology, is the collective body and study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans. Mythology, along with philosophy and political thought, is one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later Western culture. The Greek word mythos refers to the spoken word or speech, but it also denotes a tale, story or narrative.
Euhemerus was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others suggest Chios or Tegea.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the twelve Olympians are the major deities of the Greek pantheon, commonly considered to be Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Demeter, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, Hermes, and either Hestia or Dionysus. They were called Olympians because, according to tradition, they resided on Mount Olympus.
Euhemerism is an approach to the interpretation of mythology in which mythological accounts are presumed to have originated from real historical events or personages. Euhemerism supposes that historical accounts become myths as they are exaggerated in the retelling, accumulating elaborations and alterations that reflect cultural mores. It was named for the Greek mythographer Euhemerus, who lived in the late 4th century BC. In the more recent literature of myth, such as Bulfinch's Mythology, euhemerism is termed the "historical theory" of mythology.
In Greek mythology, the Greek underworld, or Hades, is a distinct realm where an individual goes after death. The earliest idea of afterlife in Greek myth is that, at the moment of death, an individual's essence (psyche) is separated from the corpse and transported to the underworld. In early mythology the dead were indiscriminately grouped together and led a shadowy post-existence; however, in later mythology elements of post-mortem judgment began to emerge with good and bad people being separated.
Persephone, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter in Greek mythology, appears in films, works of literature, and in popular culture, both as a goddess character and through the symbolic use of her name. She becomes the queen of the underworld through her abduction by Hades, the god of the underworld. The myth of her abduction represents her dual function as the as chthonic (underworld) and vegetation goddess: a personification of vegetation, which shoots forth in Spring and withdraws into the earth after harvest. Proserpina is the Roman equivalent.
In classical mythology, the Cap of Invisibility is a helmet or cap that can turn the wearer invisible, also known as the Cap of Hades or Helm of Hades. Wearers of the cap in Greek myths include Athena, the goddess of wisdom, the messenger god Hermes, and the hero Perseus. Those wearing the Cap become invisible to other supernatural entities, akin to a cloud of mist sometimes used to remain undetectable.
Myth-o-Mania is a series of books for children by Kate McMullan.
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories concern the ancient Greek religion's view of the origin and nature of the world; the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures; and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself.
Myth is a genre of folklore or theology consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. For folklorists, historians, philosophers or theologians this is very different from the use of "myth" which simply meaning something that is not true. Instead, the truth value of a myth is not a defining criterion.
The mythological Greek deity Hades often appears in popular culture. In spite of his present neutrality and lack of bad deeds, he is often portrayed as a villain due to his association with death and the underworld.
Undeterred by Argus's checkered reputation as a vigilant guardian, Thomas Greenleaf founded the New York Argus in 1795 [...].
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